Mapping Styles
Plan view The default HtHaD style is a side-view cross-section with the surface at the top of the paper, and the underground depths at the bottom. Chambers are drawn to allow a bead to fit in them, resulting in rooms with the appearance of high vaults. In a plan view style, nothing radical needs to change. The "surface" line represents the contour of a mountainside, but no longer necessarily needs to run along the top of the page. As the dungeon is constructed, it may take on the appearance of a traditional D&D adventure map, perhaps even on squared paper. Features closer to the bottom of the page are still "deeper" - think of the earlier versions of Dwarf Fortress: Example DF Dungeon. Tokens Using Coins Coins are useful because they come in different colours (coppers for and silvers for ), sizes and have two sides. For example, for British coins: *Use pennies for monster groups - "heads" for civilizations, delvers and breeders; "tails" for wandering monsters and adventurers. *The larger 2p coin for alpha predators and villains. *Use 5p coins for treasure; "head" for owned treasures and "tails" for unclaimed loot and mined riches. Coins can be tinted with whiteboard markers to further aid distinguishing between monster groups. Coins can also be stacked, which is useful for dungeons on A4 or smaller paper. Stacking occurs when there are space constraints for placing new coins, with these guidelines: *During the Age of Civilization, groups prefer to dig new chambers to contain new and , and will only stack when there is no more room on the paper to create new chambers. *Groups in the Age of Monsters prefer to use existing chambers, and will stack coins rather than dig out new rooms. They will create new chambers once their ZOC reaches its stack limit. *Coins that represent wandering monsters, multi- alpha predators (such as the Ettin), adventurers and other individuals can be stacked up to 3 coins high. *Coins for civilizations, delvers and breeders are never stacked - each coin always needs its own chamber. *Treasure coins can be stacked up to 3 coins high (except where they represent slaves or other groups) Tokens from Other Games *''The Great Khan Game'' - if you are lucky enough to own this vintage TSR game, the tokens from it are perfect. They are small (which means smaller chambers, which means larger dungeons) and the fantasy illustrations are perfect for representing different groups. Computer Dungeons Pen, paper and beads aren't always suitable, but there are several types of computer program that can help you create your dungeon. At the simplest level, MS Paint or an ASCII dungeon in Notepad could be used but ideally you need imaging editing software that supports layers. Layers allow you to build up the historical strata of your dungeon, to have movable objects to represent population and loot, and to easily keep track of zones of control. Paint programs like ArtRage or Corel Painter can be used in conjunction with an art tablet to produce dungeons with a hand-drawn feel (Example), whilst Paint.net or GIMP allows for very quickly drawn rectangular or oval chambers (Example). RPG Maker RPG Maker is a series of, well, RPG making programs by Enterbrain Inc. They include a tile-based map maker, and the "chipset" has enough tiles to represent dungeons, the surface and other features. Population and treasures can be represented with event tokens which can be moved around. As zones of control change, it's fairly easy to redraw the "wallpaper" of the dungeon walls appropriately. Raana Dungeon is an example of this style. Category:Homebrew